


touch and go

by sumaru



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Olympics, Future Fic, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 14:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10538175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumaru/pseuds/sumaru
Summary: Kageyama remembers it all too well -- the pristine wood of the stadium floors polished to a high gleam, a vice-captain’s number stretched across the proud, elegant breadth of Oikawa’s back.Four years into the future, and Kageyama once again meets Oikawa at the turning of the year.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [The Story of Us](http://oikagezine.tumblr.com/), an oikage charity fanbook that I'm really honoured to have been part of.

In Tokyo, winter feels like iron on the tongue.

 

The air is thick with the scent of it, snow so cold it tastes of metal at the back of Kageyama’s teeth. He tongues absently along his molars, pokes at the blunt tips of his canines, as if he could chase the chill from his mouth on his own like this. He forgets the shape of his tongue for a moment, it’s so stupid, so stupid early in the morning and every inch of his skin feels restless and groggy with the dark weight of the overhanging clouds, laden with snow, with the slow turning of the year. The narrow roof of the deserted train station offers little cover, and icy drifts have piled up around Kageyama’s new sneakers; he scuffs them against the ground, thin white canvas disappearing under soft white snow, and he wishes he was out running to meet the day instead.

 

Kageyama is here much too early again; but then, he always is.

 

“When will you learn how to control your face, Tobio. They’ll read your every play if you keep that up.” Unhurried footsteps crunch on the gravel scattered across the stairs behind him, and something about the deliberate pace breaking through the crust of snow, each crystalline snap like a shot in the dark, creeps a shiver up Kageyama’s spine; he can almost feel the weight of each step placed on the curve deep inside his back and bones.

 

The lights overhead sway in the wind, they pop, and Kageyama squints over his shoulder in the sudden flare of sodium yellow and white. It’s definitely too early for this.

 

“Guh,” Kageyama says to no one in particular.

 

“They’ll give you stupid nicknames that I’ll have to hear every time they interview me,” Oikawa continues. One step, crunch of gravel. Two steps, the long noise of branches and young bone growing into something new under the stadium lights. “Your brilliant and wonderful senpai, forced to talk again and again about how I trained the new darling hero of Japan volleyball with the stupid smile and the stupid nickname, and I’ll have to pretend not to gag every time.”

 

“ _Guh_ ,” Kageyama says again, in case no one in particular didn’t hear him.

 

A bag is looped around Kageyama’s fingers with a sing-song _hmm_ , the thin plastic straps snagging against the thick wool of his mittens. They’re old, yarn soft and piled with use, and the blue of the simple design that threads through them has been washed almost to grey. Kageyama remembers them when they were given to him new; he makes a vague noise at the back of his throat.

 

These are the gifts that Oikawa has given him over the years: care in the exact shape of his hands; the perfect arc of his wrist as he sets a familiar jump serve; the sharpness of teeth hidden behind the round vowels of his given name.

 

“What is it this time, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama asks suddenly, back ramrod straight and ready. Oikawa’s gifts have never been very soft.

 

“I came out all this way to pick you up, with a welcome gift even, and not even a thank you. Still such a brat, Tobio.” It’s the same sting as always. But Oikawa is staring past Kageyama, hands tucked in the fashionable pockets of his fashionable coat like he’s posing for a sponsor ad, pretending at flippancy, and something about the flat tone and the brittleness of the winter air settles like new unease on Kageyama’s shoulders. He never thought he’d ever be able to read past Oikawa’s face; but maybe this was also the gift that’s been deftly hung around his fingers.

 

The plastic bag crinkles noisily, clumsily, and Kageyama only has to see the folded curve of a slightly faded “2” to know what it is. He remembers it all too well -- the pristine wood of the stadium floors polished to a high gleam, a vice-captain’s number stretched across the proud, elegant breadth of Oikawa’s back. Kageyama was sitting in the stands then, too early for this too, still just a bit too young to make the cut, but he remembers most the home crowd as a beautiful thunder in his ear all yelling Oikawa’s name, and he knew he was yelling it, too.

 

Kageyama thinks he knows the word for this, maybe, he’s never been very good at words. And maybe this is what it feels like, the run-up to the perfect set, for him, by him, in a city that is impossibly still asleep when everything feels like it should be on fire and the curve of the sun has yet to touch the stadium now four years old. Untouched, the dorm of the training facilities he knows will have his name on the door, in wait for him to blossom with the coming spring. His breath comes heavy then, quick and all at once, curls into his lashes and sticks, small delicate ice full of salt and cold and Kageyama blinks fast, once, twice, he suddenly feels too awake like this, and it stings.

 

“Please take care of me, Oikawa-san!”

 

Kageyama flushes even in the chill. The snow melts on his too-warm cheeks, and he can feel it settle into the part of his dark hair as he bows low, nose so close to the ground he thinks he can count the spire of each snowflake piling up on the leather of Oikawa’s neat shoes, and when he tells this to Oikawa later, in the warmth of the train car headed to the university campus, their long legs lined up close, like they’re already walking in rhythm together out onto the Olympic court, Oikawa will laugh at him, snort ugly and delighted that Kageyama could be such an idiot to think he could see something so microscopic. But the new mittens Oikawa gives him for his birthday one week later, ( _“Please stop using those ratty old mittens, Tobio, they’re an embarrassment,” Oikawa had said, throwing the gift onto Kageyama’s neatly made dorm bed with little regard for decorum, decency, or any kind of respect for Kageyama’s privacy at all)_ will have a pattern of snowflakes on them, elegant and pinpoint and threaded to the exact spread of Kageyama’s palms. Stars placed in the hand.

 

“Nothing’s changed, Tobio! It’s not a bad look for you, I should take a photo, add it to my growing album. Show the team that this scary face will fall in line when Oikawa-san tells him to.” Kageyama expects the telltale click of a phone camera; he doesn’t expect the warm slide of long, calloused fingers against the back of his neck, nudging impatiently.

 

“You still don’t know how to do anything, do you. Come on, we need to change train lines.”

 

Oikawa is already walking up the station stairs ahead when Kageyama looks up, and he stares so intently for a moment at the suddenly too familiar line of Oikawa’s receding back, like he’s already framed it in his head a thousand times like this, thinks so intently about all the times that’ll he’ll stare at it again, leading him through the halls of the stadium, in flight on the court, that his duffel bag slips forgotten from his shoulder, and Kageyama almost misses the soft line of Oikawa’s mouth as he smiles into the wide open air.

 

“You’ll work hard to catch up to me.”

 

“Yes, Oikawa-san!”

 

It comes out breathless, barked sharp and restless as it hangs in the air in the long space between them, and Kageyama grits his teeth as he takes the stairs two at a time. His heart is stuck somewhere against the cage of his ribs; he thinks maybe this is the only chase he’s ever truly known.

 

“You won’t do anything to embarrass this number.”

 

“Yes, Oikawa-san!”

 

“You promise not to drool on my shoulder on the flight to Los Angeles.”

 

“Yes, Oikawa-san!”

 

“They’ll never see you coming, after I’m done with you.”

 

“Yes, Oikawa-san!”

 

“You’ll do everything I tell you to, won’t you, Tobio.”

 

“No, Oikawa-san!”

 

“No _what_ , Vice-Captain Kageyama Tobio-chan?” Oikawa teases as Kageyama finally makes up the distance of Oikawa’s long stride, and there’s something about the elegant tilt of Oikawa’s head that’s measuring him up, and the flying snow in the blue neon light of this train station at the edge of the city, at the edge of the new year, is like a halo that crowns him.

 

“No, _Captain_ _._ ”

 

Kageyama huffs it out in a rush, almost defiant, and this time Oikawa doesn’t turn his smile away from the challenge at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, I have carefully mapped out the team dynamics for how two brilliant, leading setters like Oikawa and Kageyama can work together in a single rotation. Ask me about my game plan, always.
> 
> Title is from the song [State of Grace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x4uvxpKNmo) by Taylor Swift, which gave this story its mood, if not its sense of self.


End file.
